


Wanted: Set Designer

by orphan_account



Category: Sing (2016)
Genre: Art Trade, This was so fun to do oh my goodness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9844349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Eliza interviews at Moon Theater for the position of Set Designer





	

**Author's Note:**

> For Betaem, who wanted to have their OC Eliza and their interview with Buster for the position of Set Designer written. I hope you like it!

       The theater, hot and sticky, buzzed. It reminded Eliza of an apiery, a hive run by a hive mind that muttered and shook with anxious excitement. She could feel it in the walls along with the summer sweat that seemed to congeal there.  The thing seemed to creep within its own skin so busy with activity that could only be felt. In the distance of the building she knew there were backdrops being raised, props being moved, actors running through warm ups like broken records: “Sammy sells sea shells by the sea shore. Sammy sells sea shells by the sea shore. Sammy sells sea shells-”

       “Next!”

       The call came accompanied by the door opening and a distraught giraffe walking briskly out, their hoof tangled with the chunky beads around their throat and Eliza swore she heard them mutter, “- asking stupid questions and making me feel like an idiot.”

       She swallowed, glancing to the open door. Did she really want to do this? Jobs for set designers were a dime a dozen in this city. She could go anywhere.

       “Hello? Anyone else out there?”

       Eliza stood, portfolio in hand, and walked inside.

       The koala was comically small for the desk. Eliza was sure his little arms could not reach the pens in the far left corner, or the phone in the far right, but there they were and there he sat, far beyond an arm’s reach away from either end. The sunlight streaming in through the open window cast it’s beam across the side of his face, making him squint with a half-smile. The clutter of the room was so covered in dust that as she moved, Eliza called to life a ballet of swirling particulates that tickled the senses and the sinuses.

       “Bless you,” he said after every time she sneezed.

       “I-” Eliza sniffed, “Mr. Moon, I’m here for the position of-”

       “I know,” he tapped a list of names in front of him, “just like all the other applicants, and there are a lot of applicants. Sit sit sit- we don’t bite here.”

       Eliza sat. The thick papers of her portfolio sounded like fall leaves in her shaking hands and an unseasonable chill stole over her. Mr. Moon titled his head this way and that as he looked her over and hummed, “I think you’re the youngest person to walk in here today.”

       “Oh.”

       “Yes,” he said, scanning the list in front of him, “I’m almost positive. Well, this should be interesting then. Now, tell me about how you heard of this position?”

       “Uh, th- um- it was listed online?”

       “Where online?”

       “…Job site?”

       Mr. Moon hummed again, looking down. It was then that Eliza realized he had propped a small notepad between the point of his knee and the lip of the desk. She could barely see the edge of it or the edge of the pencil he used.

       There was sweat beading on her neck, even as the chill spread.

       “Where did you go to school?”

       “Capitol Area Community College.”

       “…Where is that?” he asked, brow raised, only to cut her off, “Never mind, I probably won’t know where it is. Why did you apply for this job?”

       Eliza huffed, an idle hand tracing the logo of the college on her portfolio, “I needed one.”

       The koala gave her a hard look, his mouth a thin line. There was a pause that seemed to stretch before it was filled with the scritching of his pencil.

       “You needed one… right, okay. What do you do as a hobby?”

       “What?”

       The producer sighed, waving a hand as he rolled his eyes, “A hobby, a hobby. Something you do for fun in your own time. What do you-” he pointed at her with his pencil, “do for a hobby?”

       “…Paint.”

       “You paint.”

       “Yes.”

       “…And?”

       “I garden,” Eliza’s hands clenched tighter around her portfolio, and she had to consciously remind herself not to squish her work, “I have a garden on my fire escape. It’s mainly vegetables and fruits. I use them to cook.”

       Mr. Moon smiled, but it was directed more towards the notebook than her, “See? You do more than paint. That’s good, that’s very good…”

       Eliza coughed quietly and, while he was distracted, scratched the back of her neck where the fur had started to matt.  

       “What do you do in your spare time?”

       She cocked her head, brow furrowing,“…Didn’t you already ask me that?”

       “No,” Mr. Moon sighed, “I asked you what your hobbies are, this is different. What you do in your spare time does not necessarily have to be a hobby.”

       “Oh…” she chewed her tongue, “I…like watching cartoons.”

       The producer raised an eyebrow.

       “I like to study the art style,” Eliza explained, leaning forward, gesturing, “I like to study the process of how something goes from a script to a story board to a finished work. I like the plots better, too. I like the way they tell a story.”

       Mr. Moon blinked, and there was a look to his face that seemed to suggest he was considering what she said very carefully. Again, there was a pause, until, “Huh,” and that was it.

       Mr. Moon did not bother to write anything this time. Instead he leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling. Eliza did too and noticed the deep and jagged cracks that spidered across the plaster. Almost as of planned there was a thump above them and the ceiling shook down a million more swirling particulates to join the dancers already at play on the floor.

       “Bless you,” Mr. Moon said as she sneezed, as he moved towards the window and shouted upwards, “Nat! You okay?”

       “Yes,” Came the muffled reply from the roof.

       “Any luck with fixing the heater?”

       “No, it still won’t turn off.”

       “Oh boy. Okay! Well, well I believe in you! Keep at it!”

       “Right on, sir.”

       Mr. Moon made his way back to his desk and sat, quite once more. Eliza watched as he seemed to chew his words over. Finally, he spoke, “I’ve had people who have spent their lives doing this kind of work come to interview today, people who have trained at the University of Chicago and the Rhode Island institute of Design. The person that left just before you entered graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. They’ve had decades worth of experience and hands on training and, quite frankly, their portfolios should be on display in the museum just down the road. So I’m going to ask you this now,” he leaned forwards, fingers steepled in front of his face, “Why should you get this job?”   

       If there was a moment where Eliza were to crumble, it would have been then. It would have been as his eyes peered over his fingers, as the plaster shook again, as dust settled into her hair and her lungs, as the sweat of the building seemed to roll over her and out of the window, as the buzzing of the place filled her head with such pressure and sound it surely felt like she would burst. If there was a moment where Eliza were to call quits and leave, it would have been within the three seconds that ticked by after he asked why.

       Why this?

       Why you?

       Why?

       She grit her teeth.

       The portfolio she had carried with her across four blocks, two busses, and up three flights of stairs hit the desk with enough force to shake it. The hands, now free of their charge, grabbed the edges of the splintering wood as she pulled herself close enough to smell his soap.

       “Because I’m fucking fantastic at what I do.”

       He blinked.

       Eliza came back to herself and sat down.

       Humidity filled the space between, soaking the silence. Very slowly Mr. Moon tore his eyes away from her and focused on the portfolio that now lay in front of him. He gingerly opened it to peer at the first picture.

       Then the next.

       Then the next.

       Then the next.

       The changes in his face were so subtle Eliza wasn’t sure if they were but a byproduct of the heat and despite hope. When he looked back up though, he was smiling.

       “Well…I suppose congratulations are in order.”

       “…Wait what? Really?”

       “Yeah, really” he gestured to the work as he closed the portfolio and handed it back to her, “Not going to lie, I wasn’t thinking much of this interview at first but you’re right. You…well I won’t repeat what you said-”

       Eliza laughed. She couldn’t help it. Neither could Mr. Moon, who boiled over with high pitched giggles.

       “Really though, you’ve got life to your art. There’s movement and flexibility within the pieces that I guess is hard to do, since I didn’t see that kind of thing today, but there you are doing it. Plus,” he grinned, all teeth and glinting eyes, “it doesn’t hurt to know what you’re worth.”

       “Thank you, so much. I-”

       “You’re the one that did it, thank yourself,” Mr. Moon stood, as did Eliza, and he walked her out of his office, “I’ll need you back here tomorrow at 8 am sharp. Hope you don’t mind, we’ve only got a week before the previous set director officially retires and I want you to learn as much as you can before they go.”

       “Yeah! Yeah yeah, I can do th- wait.”

       “Excellent! So glad to hear!”

       “Wait.”

       “So I’ll see you at 8 am! I hope you-”

       “Wait,” She turned to face him as he stood in the doorway, just about to close it, “Wait, _set director_?”

       “Well yes,” he smiled, “What did you think the position was for?”

       The door shut, and Eliza was left standing once again with nothing but the hum of the hive around her.


End file.
